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Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Alarm Clocks I Do Not Want

When I spent 5 months backpacking around Europe and South America, I became accustomed to the sound of my alarm clock, and became apt at sleeping through it. This drove my various dorm companions absolutely mad (and fair enough, I would want to kill me if I was someone else sleeping in the dorm too).

Here are some ingenious alarms that I would not want to wake up to. This list is for those who thought that nothing can be more annoying than the sound of your alarm when you're in a deep sleep and dreaming of happy times - alarms just got a whole lot worse.

1. Dumbbell Alarm
It won't stop until you lift it a certain number of times. Exercise before I have even properly woken up? No thanks!

2. Shooter Alarm Clock
I often feel like shooting my alarm clock, but hitting the target might be a little difficult if you haven't had enough sleep. Until you hit the target, it won't stop beeping.

3. Bacon Alarm
If you like waking up to the smell of bacon, this one is for you. It will start cooking the meat 10 minutes before the scheduled wake up time. Unfortunately I don't think you could eat it, because the meat would be off after sitting there all night. And it might attract rodents. Just sayin'.

4. Flying Alarm Clock
The propellor jets off, and the alarm won't stop until you get up and retrieve it. Let's just hope it doesn't hit anyone in the eye.

5. Clocky
Meet Clocky, the little demon from hell. Press snooze and he will zoom off, and hide noisily until you find him again and incapacitate him.

6. Mosque Alarm
Quite possibly the tackiest alarm clock ever invented - if you want to wake up to a prayer call, get this ugly alarm clock! The only upside I can think of is it might be helpful if you want to piss of your neighbours.

7. Bomb Alarm Clock
I hope you know how to detinante a bomb. Only one of the four wires stop the countdown when cut; the other two are decoys and do nothing while one wire will immediately 'detonate' the alarm.

8. Memory Game Alarm
The only way to switch this off is to correctly press a random sequence, i.e. wake up and turn on your brain. You can buy various other alarms which require you to put together a puzzle before it will stop - I think I'd learn where physical puzzle pieces go well enough to do it in my sleep eventually though.

9. Police Siren Alarm
Any criminals you want to frighten? This flashing alarm sounds like a police siren. It would get extremely annoying too.

10. Tapping Alarm Clock
This annoying dude doesn't just make a sound, it starts tapping the table to wake you up. Because a normal alarm just isn't annoying enough.

11. Army Alarm
With this alarm, you'll wake up to a bugle call and have commands shouted at you.

12. Egg Laying Alarm
Kuku the alarm clock lays miniture eggs. It won't stop until you collect the eggs and put them all in the basket.

13. Money Shredding Alarm
This alarm clock shreds money until you turn it off. Use real money if you are stupid. In the same vein, the Snuz and Luz connects wirelessly to the internet and donates real money from your bank account to charity until you stop it. Uh oh.

14. Mosquito Alarm
There is nothing quite as annoying as the drone of a thousand mosquitos in your ear. Try waking up to this sound every morning. A psychopath must have invented this one.

15. The Tyrant
Last but not least is "the Tyrant". You plug your phone into it, and it will start randomly dialing numbers in your phone until you stop it. You will not be very popular if you have an earlier wakeup time than whoever it decides to call.

There is another alarm clock I one saw on the market which consisted of some symbols which were continually bashed together to wake you up. I haven't been able to find it this time - maybe every model has been destroyed ;-)